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We have seen that the Marxists have shown themselves to be by
no means as poor prophets as some people would like to make
them appear. Many of them, to be sure, have been wrong in some
ONE point, as, for example, the setting of a date for the great
revolutionary struggle that shall bring about important political
alterations of power in the interest of the proletariat.
What reason have we to expect that now, at last, the long expected
time is drawing close when the ban of political stagnation will be
broken, and that once more the fresh, joyful life of battle and
victorious progress on the road to political power will appear?
In his introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France, to which
reference has already been made, Engels quite properly pointed
out that, under present conditions, a great revolutionary struggle
can be carried on only by great masses who know what they intend
to do. The times are past in which a small minority, by a sudden
energetic action, can overthrow a government and erect a new one
in its place.
This was possible in a centralized state where all political power
was concentrated in a capital city which dominated the entire
country, and where the villages and smaller cities had no trace of
political life and no power of co-operation. Whoever was able to
cripple the military forces and the bureaucracy of the capital, or to
win it to their side, could seize the powers of government, and, if
the general conditions were favorable to a social revolution, use
them for that purpose.

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To in the age of railroads and telegraphs, of newspapers and public
assemblages, of countless industrial centers, of magazine rifles and
machine guns it is absolutely impossible for a minority to cripple
the military: forces of the capital, unless they are already
completely disorganized. It is also impossible to confine a political
struggle to the capital. Political life has become national.
Where these conditions exist a great transfer of political power
that shall destroy a tyrannical regime is only to be expected where
all of the following conditions exist:
1. The great mass of the people must be decisively hostile to such a
regime.
2. There mast be a great organized party in irreconcilable opposition
to such a regime.
3. This party must represent the interests of the great majority of the
population and possess their confidence.
4. Confidence in the ruling regime, both in its power and in its
stability, mast have been destroyed by its own tools, by the
bureaucracy and the army.

During the last decade, at least in Western Europe, these
conditions have never existed simultaneously. For a long time the
proletariat did not form a majority of the population and the
Socialist Party was not the strongest party. When in previous
decades we looked for the early appearance of the revolution, it
was because we calculated, not alone upon the proletariat, but also
upon the small capitalist democracy to help make up the mass of
the revolutionary party, and upon the small capitalists and the
farmers to form a party of the masses that would stand behind such
a revolution. But the small capitalist democracy has completely
failed in this respect. In Germany it no longer constitutes an
opposition party.

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On the other hand, however, the uncertainty as to conditions which
prevailed in 1870 has disappeared in the great cities of Europe
outside of Russia. The governments have entrenched themselves
and grown in strength and security. They have learned how to gain
the confidence of the mass of the nation arid to convince it that
they stand for its interest.
So it was that in the first decade of the rise of a permanent and
independent labor movement, during the ‘60s of the last century,
the possibilities of revolution were constantly less. At the same
time the proletariat was ever in more and more need of such a
revolution, and, because of the example of the decades just passed,
believed such a revolution near.
But gradually conditions changed to favor its coming.
The organisation of the proletariat grew. Perhaps this was most
striking in Germany. During the last dozen years this growth has
been especially rapid. We have seen the organization of the Social
Democrats reach a half million members. Closely united to it in
spirit is a trade union movement with two million members.
Simultaneously has grown its press as a work of the organization
and not of private enterprise. The political daily press now has a
circulation of nearly a million, and the trade union press,
composed mostly of weekly papers, reaches an even greater
number.
That is an organized power of the laboring. subject masses such as
the world has never seen before.
The domination of the ruling class over the subject class has
hitherto rested in no small degree on its control of the organized
means of governmental power, while the subject class was almost
wholly without organization, at least of any organization

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extending over the field of the entire state. The working class has
never been wholly without organization. Through antiquity and
the middle ages and up to recent times these organizations,
however, were confined either to single, narrow BRANCHES OF
INDUSTRY or to single, narrow LOCALITIES – either guild or
municipal corporations.
Under certain circumstances these could exercise a strong restraint
over municipalities. There can be no greater mistake than to
confuse state and community without distinguishing between
them, and to designate one and the other as organizations of the
same class domination. A community CAN be, and often is, the
same as the state. A community, within the state, may also
represent the subject class, if this constitutes a majority and asserts
itself. During the last century it performed this function in the
most striking manner in the municipality of Paris. This
municipality came to be the organization of the lowest classes of
society.
But in no great state of today is it possible for a singly
municipality to maintain its independence in opposition to the
power of the state. It is therefore all the more necessary that the
subject classes should be organized in great organizations
extending over the entire scope of the state and embracing all
branches of industry.
This has been most successfully accomplished in Germany. Not
only in France, but also in England with its old trade unions, is the
economic as well as the political movement very much divided.
But however much the proletarian organizations may grow, they
will never in normal, non-revolutionary times include the whole of
the laboring class within the state, but only an elite, that through
either trade, local or individual peculiarities are raised above the

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mass of the population. On the other hand, the attractive power of
a class organization in revolutionary times, in which even the
weakest feel themselves capable of and willing to fight, depends
upon the numerical strength of the classes whose interests it
represents.
It is therefore noteworthy that the wage workers constitute a
majority, not only of the POPULATION, but even of the
electorate, in the German Empire.
The exact figures of the laboring population from the census of
1907 are not yet available. We must therefore take those for 1895.
When we compare these with the election of 1893 we obtain the
following:
In 1893 the number entitled to vote was 10,628,292. On the other
hand, there were in 1895 15,506,182 persons active in industry.
Subtract from this figure the number of those under twenty years
of age, ands one-half of those between twenty and thirty, and we
have 10,742,989, as the nearest figure obtainable of the male
industrial workers of voting age. This number is almost identical
with the number of those entitled to vote in 1893.
Of the male industrial workers of voting age in agriculture,
industry and trade (reckoned in the same manner) there were again
4,172,269 independent producers and 5,590,743 wage workers and
salary force. If we consider, however, that in business (trade and
industry) alone, that of the 3,144,977 heads of business more than
one-half, 1,714,351, a single person was both employer and
employee, and that therefore the overwhelming majority of these
fall within the circle of interest of the proletariat then we are not
exaggerating when we accept the statement that in 1895, while
there were three and a half million such “independent” producers
who were interested in private property in the means of

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Karl Kautsky

production, there were more than six million proletarians who
were interested in the abolition of this private property:
We may take it for granted that in the remaining strata of the
population that are to be considered, while insignificant in
numbers, is divided in about the same way. This is especially true
of those who are classified as “independent without occupation”,
and who are composed upon the one side of rich capitalist
landlords and on the other of needy invalids and recipients of oldage pensions.
If we take the total population engaged in productive industry, the
preponderance of the proletariat is much greater than among those
entitled to the suffrage. Those active in industry who do not vote
are nearly all child laborers.
The figures are as follows:
Age

Independent Employed

18-20 years

42,711

1,335,016

20-30 years

613,045

3,935,592

On the other hand:
Age

Independent Employed

30-40 years

1,319,301

3,111,115

40-50 years

1,368,261

1,489,317

Over 50 years

2,102,814

1,648,085

Altogether in agriculture, industry and trade there are 5,474,046
“independents” and 13,438,377 employed. If we deduct from this
first class a portion composed of home-workers, and similar
“independents” who are really disguised proletarians, we can

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Karl Kautsky

safely say that in 1895 scarcely one-fourth of the productive
population was interested in the maintenance of private property in
the means of production, while the proletariat composed fully onethird of the electorate.
Thirteen years earlier, in 1882, the conditions were not yet so
favorable. If we compare the figures of the occupation statistics of
1882 with those of the election of 1881, and use the same method
of calculation we have just applied to the figures for 1895, we
obtain the following:
Year

Total Voters

Voters

Voting Laborers

1882

9,090,381

3,947192

4,744,021

10,628,292 4,172,269

5,590,743

1895
Increase

1,537,911

225,077

846,722

The number of individual industries was almost as great in 1882 as
in 1895 – 1,877,872. But the number of those classified as
“independent” who led a non-proletarian existence was certainly
higher in 1882 than in 1885. We can also certainly take it for
granted that the number of those interested in the maintenance of
private property in the instruments of production was
proportionately greater in 1882 than in 1895, when it was in the
neighborhood of three and one-half million. The proletarian
element, on the contrary, included about five million. The
defenders of private property have, therefore, remained practically
the same from 1882 to 1895. The number of their opponents in the
electorate, on the contrary, has increased a million.
The number of Socialist votes grew at an even more rapid rate
during this period, increasing from 31,901 to 1,780,989. To be
sure, the number of Socialist votes in 1881 was artificially
decreased by the anti-Socialist laws.

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Karl Kautsky

Since 1895 capitalist development, and with it the growth of the
proletariat, has made yet greater progress. Unfortunately the
statistics of 1907 that would give us the desired enlightenment on
these points are not yet available for the whole empire.
According to some preliminary statements the number of male
“independent persons” in agriculture, industry and trade, during
the period from 1895 to 1907 increased but 33,084 – practically
not at all. The number of male clerical workers and wage workers,
the proletariat, increased 2,891,228, or almost a hundred times as
much.
The proletarian element that in 1895 was already the dominant
element in the population and in the electorate, has since then
enormously increased its preponderance.
If we take it for granted that the proportion of those entitled to
suffrage among the “independents” and the laborers remained the
same as in 1895, then we can carry forward the table already given
in the following manner:
Year

Total Voters “Independent” Voters Laboring Voters

1895

10,628,292

4,172,269

5,090,743

1908

13,352,900

4,202,903

7,275944

Increase

2,724,608

30,634

1,685,201

The lion’s share of the increase in the number of voters falls to the
proletariat and this in a higher degree than in the period from 1882
to 1895.
The figures of the census of 1905 are also strikingly significant as
showing industrial progress.

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Karl Kautsky

As a general thing the cities are much more favorable to the
political life and organization of the proletariat and to the
extension of our teachings than the open country. It is therefore
highly significant that the population of the latter has retreated
before that of the cities,
How swiftly this change is proceeding is shown by the following
table. The country population includes all those living in
communities having less than 2,000 population, and the city
population those living in communities of more than 2,000.
Year

Rural Population

City population

Number

Per Cent

Number

Per Cent

1871

26,219,352

63.9

14,790,798

36.1

1880

26,513,531

58.6

18,720,530

41.4

1890

26,785,241

53.0

23,243,229

47.0

1900

25,734,103

45.7

30,633,075

54.3

1905

25,822,481

42.6

34,818,797

57.4

In a period of thirty years the city population has more
than doubled, while the country population has not only relatively
but absolutely decreased. While the city dwellers have increased
more than twenty millions, the number living in the country has
decreased nearly one million. At the time, of the establishment of
the German empire the latter formed almost two-thirds of the
population; today they form but a little over two-fifths.
So the economic development operates to continuously increase
the revolutionary element among the people, that element that is
interested in the abolition of the present property and political
institutions, and to give it a greater preponderance in the state, and
this at the expense of the conservative elements.
To be sure, these revolutionary elements are only revolutionary as
a possibility, not as a reality. They constitute the recruiting ground

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for the “soldiers of the revolution”, but not all are at once such
soldiers.
To a large degree hatched out of the small capitalist and small
farmer class, many proletarians long carry the shells of these
classes about with them. They do not feel themselves proletarians,
but as would-be property owners. They live in the hope of getting
a little strip of land, or of opening a miserable little store, or of
becoming “independent” by establishing a tiny hand industry with
a couple of unfortunate apprentices. Others have given up hope in
these directions, or recognize what a miserable existence these
things really mean, but they are still unwilling to fight for a better
existence in co-operation with their comrades. Such become strike
breakers and yellow trade unionists. Others, again, have gone
further, and have come to recognize the necessity of fighting the
capitalists that stand in antagonism to them, but do not feel
themselves secure enough and strong enough to declare war upon
the entire capitalist system. These look to capitalist parties and
governments for relief.
Indeed, even among those who have become thoroughly conscious
of the necessity of the proletarian class struggle, there are still
plenty who cannot escape from the influence of present society,
and who doubt or despair of the victory of the proletariat.
Just so much the more rapid the economic development, and
therewith the proletarianization of the population proceeds, the
more numerous the hordes that stream from the country to the city,
from the East to the West, out of the ranks of the small possessors
into the ranks of propertyless, just so much the more numerous
within the ranks of the proletarians is the element that have not yet
comprehended the significance of the social revolution, indeed
that do not even understand the significance of the class
antagonisms in our society.
To win these to the idea of Socialism is an indispensable, but,
under ordinary conditions, a very difficult task, that demands the

Karl Kautsky

Halaman 71

greatest sacrifice and skill, and never proceeds as fast as we wish.
Our recruiting ground today includes fully three-fourths of the
population, probably even more; the number of votes that are
given to us do not equal one-third of all the voters, and not onefourth of all those entitled to vote.
But the rate of progress increases with a leap when the
revolutionary spirit is abroad. It is almost inconceivable with what
rapidity the mass of the people reach a clear consciousness of their
class interests at such a time. Not alone their courage and their
belligerency but their political interest as well, is spurred on in the
highest degree through the consciousness that the hour has at last
come for them to burst out of the darkness of night into the glory
of the full glare of the sun. Even the laziest becomes industrious,
even the most cowardly becomes brave, and even the most narrow
gains a wider view. In such times a single year will accomplish an
education of the masses that would otherwise have required a
generation.
When such a situation has arisen, when a stage has been reached
where internal conflicts threaten a collapse, and if there is within
such a nation a class that is interested in attaining, and has the
power to take political power, then the only thing that is needed is
a party that possesses the confidence of this class, and which
stands in irreconcilable antagonism to the tottering regime, and
which clearly recognizes the existing situation, in order to lead the
aspiring class to victory.
The Socialist party has long been such a party. The revolutionary
class is also here, and has for some time constituted a majority of
the nation. Can we also reckon upon the moral collapse of the
ruling regime?

Halaman 72

Karl Kautsky

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We have seen how Engels in 1885 called attention to the fact that
since the French Revolution, with its after effects, which
continued from 1789 to 1815, revolution had come in Europe in
periods of about fifteen years – in 1815, 1830, 1848-52, 1870-71,
From this Engels concluded that the next revolution was due about
the close of the ’80s or the beginning of the ’90s. There actually
was a great political transformation about this time, culminating in
the overthrow of the Bismarckian regime and a revival of
democratic and social-reform efforts throughout all Europe. But
this uprising was insignificant and short lived, and since then
almost two decades have passed without any actual revolution
taking place – at least in Europe proper.
Why is this? How are we to account for the continuous unrest in
Europe from 1789 to 1871, and for the continuous stability in
political conditions since, which has now culminated in complete
political stagnation.
During the whole of the first half of the nineteenth century large
sections of the population, of greatest importance in the economic
and intellectual life, were completely excluded from the
government, which, as the agent of the nobility and the priesthood,
was in sharp opposition to them, partly through misunderstanding
and partly through direct antagonism. In Germany and Italy
economic growth was prevented by the multitude of little states.
The period from 1846 to 1870 greatly changed this situation.
During this time industrial capital gained a victory over landed
property, first in England, where the corn laws were abolished in
1846 and free trade introduced. Elsewhere, as in Germany and
Austria, industrial capital at least obtained an equal position

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alongside of the landed interests. The intellectuals secured
freedom of press and movement. The small capitalists and farmers
obtained the suffrage. The national unity of Germany and Italy
satisfied a long-felt and urgent longing of these nations. To be
sure, this was brought about after the collapse of the revolution of
1848, not by internal movements, but by external wars. The
Crimean War of 1854-56 overthrew serfdom in Russia and
compelled consideration of the industrial bourgeoisie by the
government of the Czar, 1859, 1866, and 1870 saw the completion
of Italian unity, and 1866 and 1870 saw the same thing
accomplished in an imperfect form in Germany. A liberal era was
begun in Austria in 1866, and in Germany also the introduction of
universal suffrage paved the way to a certain freedom of the press
and of organization. The year 1870 completed this tendency and
brought France a democratic republic. In England an electoral
reform was carried through in 1867 granting the suffrage to the
upper circles of the working class and such of the small capitalists
as had not obtained it previously.
These steps gave all the classes in European nations, with the
exception of the proletariat, a legal foundation upon which to base
their existence. They had obtained, even if in a somewhat
incomplete form, the things for which they had been striving since
the great Revolution. While all their wishes were not fulfilled, and
could not be fulfilled, since the interests of various divisions of the
possessing class are frequently antagonistic, yet those who felt
their rights abridged did not feel strong enough to fight for
complete control of the state, and the things they lacked were not
important enough to make them willing to take the risk of a
revolution.
There remains but one revolutionary class in present European
society, the PROLETARIAT, and, above all, the city proletariat.
In it the revolutionary impulse still lives.
Although the carrying out of these transformations fundamentally
altered the political situation, expectations were still widely

Karl Kautsky

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cherished that were based upon the experiences of the years from
1789 to 1871. Reasoning upon the experiences of centuries, the
conclusion was drawn that there would soon be another revolution.
To be sure, it was not a purely proletarian revolution that was
expected, but a combination of a small bourgeois and proletarian
revolution, but in which the proletariat, in accordance with its
increased importance, would take the lead. This was the
expectation, not alone of a few “dogma-believing Marxists,” but
of practical politicians who were wholly untouched by Marxism –
such, for instance, as Bismarck. When, in 1878, he considered it
necessary to call for special legislation against the Socialists,
although they had at that time not drawn to themselves a half
million votes, which was less than ten per cent of the number of
voters and less than six per cent of the total number of those
entitled to vote, and if he was even then considering the desperate
remedy of trying to provoke the Socialists to street fighting before
they became irresistible, such views can be explained only on the
theory that he thought the proletarian-little bourgeois revolution at
the very door.
And, in fact, there was a series of events that favored this view,
and this wholly aside from the remembrance of the events of the
previous century.
During the ’70s an economic crisis broke over Europe, more
lasting and extensive than had ever been known ; it continued until
the second half of the ’80s. The misery in proletarian and small
capitalist circles and the discouragement in capitalist circles called
forth by this crisis were aggravated still further by the
simultaneous sharpening of competition in the means of life from
America and Russia, which apparently promised to end all
agricultural production in Western Europe.
The universal misery of farmers, artisans and proletarians, the
dwindling confidence of the bourgeoisie, the brutal suppression of
Socialist efforts – since 1871 in France, and no less in Germany

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and Austria since 1878 – all this appeared to indicate the early
approach of a catastrophe.
But the governmental institutions that had been created between
1848 and 1871 corresponded too closely to the necessities of the
great mass of the population for them to collapse at this time. On
the contrary, the more threatening the danger of revolution
appeared, which could be only of a proletarian, anti-capitalist
character, the closer the wealthy classes clung to the government.
The small capitalists and farmers, moreover, found the newly
acquired political rights, and especially the ballot, very effective
means for influencing the government, and of obtaining all sorts of
material concessions from it. They were all the more willing to
purchase help from the government by political services, the more
unbearable their previous allies in political struggles became.
So it was that the widespread discontent which arose from
economic depression and political oppression produced only
insignificant revolutions. The most important results of these, as
has already been remarked, were the overthrow of Bismarck in
1890 and, in the course of a rather violent transformation of the
French constitution, the appearance of Boulangerism in France in
1889. With these even the appearance of revolutionary situations
disappeared.
Just about the time of these political transformations the long
industrial depression ceased, A period of most active economic
improvement began, which, with few interruptions, has continued
up until within recent years. The capitalists and their intellectual
retainers, professors, journalists and the like, took new courage,
The hand workers shared in the improvement, and even agriculture
once more enjoyed a revival. It found an expanding market in the
swiftly growing industrial population, especially for such products
as meat or milk, which were little affected by foreign competition.
It was not the agrarian tariffs that rescued European agriculture,
for even free trade countries like England, Holland, Denmark

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Karl Kautsky

shared in the rise, but it was rather the rapid upward movement of
industry which came at the end of the ’80s.
This upward movement was, in turn, itself a result of the rapid
extension of the world market, the same extension that had sent
the stream of food stuffs pouring into Europe from distant
countries, and had thereby produced the agricultural crisis. This
growth of the world market was due especially to the great
development of railroad construction outside Western Europe.
Following is the length of the railroads in kilometers [1]:
1880

1890

1906

Increase
1880-1906 %

Germany 33,634 42,869 57,376

70

25,932 36,895 47,142

32

England 28,854 32,297 37,107

29

France

On the other hand the following six countries show a remarkable
increase:
1880

1890

1906

Increase
1880-1906 %

Russia

22,664 32,390 70,305

210

British India

14,772 27,316 46,642

215

China

11

200

5,953

54,000

Japan

121

2,333

8,067

6,666

171,669 331,599 473,096

176

America
Africa

4,607

9,386 28,193

513

One sees how much greater has been the building of railroads in
the new region where capitalism has been growing than in older
countries since 1880, and especially since 1890.

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At the same time the means of ocean transportation have grown
with leaps and bounds. The carrying weight of ocean steamers is
in tons:

German Empire
Great Britain
Norway and Sweden

1882

1893

1906

249,000

783,000 2,097,000 (1907)

3,700,000 6,183,000 9,606,514
140,000

392,000 1,240,000

67,000

123,000

376,000

France

342,000

622,000

723,000

United States

617,000

826,000 2,077,000 (1907)

Denmark

Japan

40,000

108,000

939,000

These figures reflect the tremendous extension of the world
market during the past two decades, which made possible the
absorption during this period of an increased mass of goods. As a
result of this fact the attention of all industrial countries was fixed
upon this world market, and, naturally, as a result, upon colonial
politics, as a means of extending the foreign market. To be sure,
the acquisition of new and distant markets has done very little to
extend the foreign market since the ‘80s. The later colonial politics
of this period have been directed almost exclusively toward
Africa, where alone there still remains a large extent of what the
European powers call “free” land – that is, land that is not
possessed by any powerful nation.
It is only necessary to refer to the foregoing table showing the
progress of railroad construction to recognize how little Africa has
been touched by this extension. To be sure, the length of its
railroads during the years from 1880 to 1906 has grown from
4,600 to 28,000 kilometers, but what does this signify beside the
growth in Asia during the same period from 16,000 to 88,000 and

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Karl Kautsky

for America of from 171,000 to 473,000.Even in Africa itself the
lion’s share of the railway building was not in the new colonies
that have been established since the ’80s, but is the old colonies
and independent states, as is shown by the following table:
Length of railroads in kilometers
1880 1890 1906
Algeria

1,405 3,104 4,906

Egypt

1,449 1,547 5,252

Abyssinia
Cape Colony

–

–

306

1,457 2,922 5,812

Natal

158

546 1,458

Transvaal

–

120 2,191

Orange State

–

237 1,283

Remainder of Africa

438

919 6,985

Total

4,607 9,356 28,193

Only 7,000 kilometers, one-fourth of the railroad mileage of
Africa, less than even one per cent of the railroads of the earth,
was constructed in those districts which, to be sure not all but in
large part, have been acquired through the recent colonial politics
of the great European powers. It is evident how little this colonial
policy has had to do with the extension of the world market which
has taken place during the last twenty years, or with the revival of
production.
But this revival is very plainly connected with the opening of
foreign markets, which has taken place simultaneously with the
development of modern colonial policy since the ‘80s.
Consequently the mass of the bourgeoisie connect the colonial
policy with the improvement in economic conditions. The result is
that anew ideal has arisen for the bourgeoisie of the great
European powers. During the ‘90s this ideal began to be placed in

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opposition to Socialism, the same Socialism that had captured so
many of the thinkers of this same bourgeoisie a decade before.
This ideal was the linking together of transoceanic territory with
the European government the so-called IMPERIALISM.
The imperialism of one great nation, however, implies a policy of
conquest, and implies enmity toward the other great powers which
have entered upon the same policy of conquest in the same
transoceanic fields. Such a policy cannot be carried out without
great military preparations, without great standing armies, without
fleets, that shall be in a condition to carry on battles in distant
oceans.
Until the ‘60s the capitalist class was generally hostile to
militarism, because it was hostile to the government. It hated the
standing army that cost such vast sums of money and was the
strongest support of a government that was hostile to it. The
capitalist democracy looked upon the standing army as
superfluous, since it confined its endeavors to national boundaries,
and had no wish for wars of conquest.
Since the ‘70s the sympathy of the capitalist class for standing
armies has steadily increased, and this not alone in Germany and
France, where the war of 1870 had made the army popular – in
Germany as the bringer of brilliant victories, in prance as a means
of avoiding such desolation as that war had brought. In other
countries also there began to be enthusiasm for the standing army,
as much as a means of repressing the internal enemy as of
repulsing external foes. The possessing class became friendly to
the army in just the degree that they became friendly to the
government. However much they might be divided by antagonistic
interests, all joined hands in the willingness to sacrifice for the
warlike preparations. Here the radical democrats and the
conservative defenders of feudal privileges joined hands. The
proletariat, the Socialist, presented the only opposition.

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So it was that the government was extraordinarily strengthened
during th